Health care law support drops after Supreme Court hearing

Public support for President Obama’s health care law has dropped by 5 percentage points since the Supreme Court heard legal challenges to it in March, with 37 percent of Americans now saying they feel favorably toward the law compared to 42 percent last month.

Opposition to the law has meanwhile crept upward, with 44 percent of respondents to a Kaiser Family Foundation poll saying they have an unfavorable opinion of it.

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That’s a reversal from how Americans initially felt about the law in April 2010, when support outranked opposition by 6 percentage points. Kaiser has tracked public opinion about the law every month since Congress passed it two years ago.

The health care overhaul is in a period of uncertainty until the justices rule in June on whether it’s constitutional. As the public remains divided, both parties are angling to win the debate as they court voters before the November election.